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schmidtmark56's review against another edition
3.0
Wow. Never before have I read anything so strange, so random (in the best sense of the word), and so dreamlike. The "stories" or "poems" in this collection were like dream transcriptions, and they varied from laugh out loud funny to skippable. Most of them included some sort of death, but it's all done in such a preposterous way that it doesn't actually seem dark. People just fall over and die, get insulted and die, fall off something and die, think too hard and die, etc.
Given the author's... well... face, you wouldn't expect such a deadly funny collection, you would expect something very serious and even evil, but this collection felt like something childish for adults (apparently he actually wrote children's books); many of these stories had death or very alarming things which kids don't need to read about, but I mean that it had a sort of childish aura. The collection had a ridiculously high number of strong first lines, which really grab your attention. The very first... story? is just legendary and is a portent of what is to come:
There was a red-haired man who had no eyes or ears.
Neither did he have any hair, so he was called red-haired arbitrarily.
He couldn't speak, since he didn't have a mouth. Neither did he have a nose.
He didn't even have any arms or legs. He had no stomach and he had no back and he had no spine and he had no innards whatsoever. He had nothing at all!
Therefore there's no knowing whom we are even talking about.
In fact it's better that we don't say any more about him.
The "stories" or "poems" in the first section of this collection all feel vaguely like parables or Aesop's fables. They have a certain simplistic charm to them, and they grip you. There is poetry later in the collection which drops off in interest and in richness, but the works in the beginning of the collection are wonderful and of very high quality.
His longish short story “The Old Woman” was excellent! It has a somewhat abrupt ending, but I was totally sold on it, and I loved it, perhaps one of my favorite short stories now. I actually gasped when he remembered the rotting thing in his apartment just before he led that christian girl to his place, and yeah, the ending left a lot to be desired but hey, it was in character. The "novella" had an interesting musing upon God. Specifically, the main character met a cute girl in line at the store, and one of the few questions he asked her was if she beleived in God. Her answer was "of course", and the narrator liked this. But the narrator later asked his friend if he believed, and his friend balked at the question. The narrator explained he wanted to ask if people believed in immortality but thought it was a stupid sounding question. He explained that he thought there were "no believers or nonbelievers. There are only those who want to believe and those who do not want to believe." His friend completes the thought "So those who do not want to believe already believe in something? ...And those who want to believe already believe in nothing?" I love how much the russians worry about this.
His later poetry in the collection was not very good; it was too random without enough gripping peculiarity or continuity between lines. The randomness was distracting instead of fun or entertaining, as it was in the first section. Some of the works in the final section are worth noting, such as "Notnow", but many felt like a guest who has been lingering too long and their one joke is getting old. This book, perhaps like Pessoa's Book of Disquiet is something rather to leave on your shelf and reference randomly for inspiration, than something one reads from cover to cover.
Given the author's... well... face, you wouldn't expect such a deadly funny collection, you would expect something very serious and even evil, but this collection felt like something childish for adults (apparently he actually wrote children's books); many of these stories had death or very alarming things which kids don't need to read about, but I mean that it had a sort of childish aura. The collection had a ridiculously high number of strong first lines, which really grab your attention. The very first... story? is just legendary and is a portent of what is to come:
There was a red-haired man who had no eyes or ears.
Neither did he have any hair, so he was called red-haired arbitrarily.
He couldn't speak, since he didn't have a mouth. Neither did he have a nose.
He didn't even have any arms or legs. He had no stomach and he had no back and he had no spine and he had no innards whatsoever. He had nothing at all!
Therefore there's no knowing whom we are even talking about.
In fact it's better that we don't say any more about him.
The "stories" or "poems" in the first section of this collection all feel vaguely like parables or Aesop's fables. They have a certain simplistic charm to them, and they grip you. There is poetry later in the collection which drops off in interest and in richness, but the works in the beginning of the collection are wonderful and of very high quality.
His longish short story “The Old Woman” was excellent! It has a somewhat abrupt ending, but I was totally sold on it, and I loved it, perhaps one of my favorite short stories now. I actually gasped when he remembered the rotting thing in his apartment just before he led that christian girl to his place, and yeah, the ending left a lot to be desired but hey, it was in character. The "novella" had an interesting musing upon God. Specifically, the main character met a cute girl in line at the store, and one of the few questions he asked her was if she beleived in God. Her answer was "of course", and the narrator liked this. But the narrator later asked his friend if he believed, and his friend balked at the question. The narrator explained he wanted to ask if people believed in immortality but thought it was a stupid sounding question. He explained that he thought there were "no believers or nonbelievers. There are only those who want to believe and those who do not want to believe." His friend completes the thought "So those who do not want to believe already believe in something? ...And those who want to believe already believe in nothing?" I love how much the russians worry about this.
His later poetry in the collection was not very good; it was too random without enough gripping peculiarity or continuity between lines. The randomness was distracting instead of fun or entertaining, as it was in the first section. Some of the works in the final section are worth noting, such as "Notnow", but many felt like a guest who has been lingering too long and their one joke is getting old. This book, perhaps like Pessoa's Book of Disquiet is something rather to leave on your shelf and reference randomly for inspiration, than something one reads from cover to cover.
bondebonde's review against another edition
3.0
A very strange, funny, and enjoyable book. As inconsistent as Grimm's fairy tales, but in a very different ways. In fact it he writes a fairy tale in which i man is visited by a magician who will grant him three wishes, but instead the man runs away and cries. Then the final line, "Reader! Think this fable over and it will make you somewhat uncomfortable." Kharms is classified as an absurdist and he certainly is at times. This can be fun, jolting, or boring and annoying. This book is filled with enough wonderful one-liners (some of the 'stories' are in fact one-liners) that it is worth it. A few for posterity:
You should quit smoking in order to boast of your will power.
Bubnov did not love his new wife. Whnever she left the house, Bubnov would buy himself a new hat and spent his time exchanging greetings with his neighbor, Anna Moseyevna. But once one of Anna Moiseyevna's teeth broke and she opened her mouth real wide in pain. Bubnov began to ponder deeply his biography.
"You see," I said, "in my opinion, there are no believers or non-believers. There are only those who want to believe and those that do not want to believe."
(Finally, a full story for you)
The Meeting
Now, one day a man went to work and on the way he met another man, who, having bought a loaf of Polish bread, was heading back home where he came from.
And that's it, more or less.
And that's it, more or less.
You should quit smoking in order to boast of your will power.
Bubnov did not love his new wife. Whnever she left the house, Bubnov would buy himself a new hat and spent his time exchanging greetings with his neighbor, Anna Moseyevna. But once one of Anna Moiseyevna's teeth broke and she opened her mouth real wide in pain. Bubnov began to ponder deeply his biography.
"You see," I said, "in my opinion, there are no believers or non-believers. There are only those who want to believe and those that do not want to believe."
(Finally, a full story for you)
The Meeting
Now, one day a man went to work and on the way he met another man, who, having bought a loaf of Polish bread, was heading back home where he came from.
And that's it, more or less.
And that's it, more or less.
swordfishtrombone's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
inspiring
mysterious
fast-paced
4.5
tiggerbooks's review against another edition
5.0
I NEED TO REREAD GOD I LOVE HIMMMMMM JUST AMAZINGGG
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